"O.J. Innocent" says BBC

Great Debates
21

Yes, I have experience with martial arts (twelve years of judo and jujitsu, black belt ranking, also experience with tae kwon do, aikido, and high school wrestling).

It is entirely possible to kill two people with a knife and not be injured seriously. This would be especially true if you were an outstanding football player, and one of the people were a woman who you outweighed by about a hundredd pounds, and the other a waiter whom you took by surprise.

Bruises are produced by blood collecting under the skin. They are easiest to produce over bony areas of the body, like the head, face, knuckles, shins, etc.

As long as OJ was only struck on the torso or the muscles of his arms and legs, it is quite possible for him to have killed Ron Goldman without being bruised.

If you want to think about something unlikely, try the idea that entirely on the spur of the moment, some 50 people across the LAPD spontaneously decided to participate in a conspiracy against a well known and popular stranger to frame him for a crime he did not commit. Somehow or other they managed to plant blood evidence on the scene before obtaining blood samples from the innocent stranger. Somehow they managed to choose a person with a history of violence against the victim, who then attempted to flee the jurisdiction with a disguise and passport, even though he was totally innocent. They did all this at the risk of losing their careers and going to prison, motivated entirely by a racist desire to get a black man into trouble - a black man who, as was previously posted, had been treated with kid gloves by this racist and corrupt LAPD.

Or maybe it was Santa Claus.

22

Who would be hate this woman passionately enough to try and sever her head off? Who had a cut on his hand? Who had been arrested before for attacking his wife? Who had just seen his ex-wife in a little black dress at a dance recital? Why did Nicole tell friends that one day he’d kill her and “O.J.” his way out of it? How many people could afford those shoes? And why did OJ originally deny owning a pair? Who told his friends that he had had “dreams” of murdering his ex-wife? Why haven’t there been other murders if the “real” killer wasn’t caught? Why would the police frame him with a pair of gloves that “didn’t fit?” How did the police communicate to each other about the conspiracy? Through radios that could be intercepted? Through cell phones that could be intercepted? How did they have the time and place to all get together and concoct this conspiracy? So the LAPD is inept enough to muddle the crime scene but savvy enough to concoct this elaborate conspiracy? Why has NO ONE from the LAPD, or an ex-wife of a cop, come forward (with a million dollar book deal, no doubt) to tell of this conspiracy? Why would the cops want to let a homocidal killer run through the streets of THEIR hometown in order to bring charges against a popular athlete?

23

Tom, I may be misunderstanding your point. The defense actually used the argument that only an extremely small percentage of wife-beaters go on to kill said wife. But an article I read pointed out that they failed to consider the more important probability: in instances where a woman is killed who was previously the victim of physical abuse by her husband, the chance that the husband would prove to be the killer is greater than 80% (sorry, I don’t have a cite for this; hopefully my memory serves me).

Anyway, this suggests that in this situation, where we happen to have a dead body who was previously the victim of spousal abuse, the logic pointing us toward the ex-husband is not circular.

24

Your “2-minute Shakespeare” version of the trial was right on, Philster, especially this bit:

Marcia Clark handed the case over to the defense on a silver salver.

This, however, is extremely offensive and I believe worthy of apology, Philster.

25

lissener, I hope you were kidding. If not, please report here for a clue.
Thanks.

26

The fact that people take this so emotionally and get so uptight about it says a lot about America. Frankly, it makes me see why many people think OJ was framed. You have half the nation out there howling for his blood.

Newsflash. Rich whtie people get away with murder all the time (James Dupont and his gay lover anyone?) and no one gets as worked up about it. Here is someone mentioning that the BBc raises questions about the case against OJ, and you get the same fucking knee jerk answeres from people that we got through out the trial. Grow up

27

Bob, That was indeed the point I was making. If you introduce independent evidence that 80 per cent of women who are beaten by their husbands and go on to be murdered are murdered by the husband, then the argument is both (a) general and (b) not circular. Twenty per cent is still reasonable doubt to my mind, though.

I think that the fact that he was known to have beaten her in the past should immediately caused the police to treat him as a suspect, but I don’t think it should have been enough to convict him, as Needs2Know seems to be suggesting.

  1. She was brutally murdered.

  2. He had beaten her in the past.

  3. He did not have a satisfactory alibi.

Therefore:

  1. He murdered her.

Surely you can see the poverty of that reasoning?

28

Amen- especially in light of the fact that dozens of innocents have sat for years on death row before being freed, and it barely registers on the national consciousness. Where is the outrage there? Why don’t we here continual rants about “idiot juries” in those cases?

29

hear…“hear continual rants”. Arghhh.

30

I haven’t seen the program by the BBC but from the way it is described, I have to agree, to a point. I was an “O.J. trial junky”. If I had been on the jury, I would have had to come to the same conclusion that they did. The defense did a very good job establishing a reasonable doubt, and most of it was factual IIRC.

There are some very interesting problems with the case, though. If O.J. actually committed the crimes, why were there none of his fingerprints at the scene? He supposedly dropped one of his gloves at the scene. Assuming that he kept the other one on, where are the prints from his ungloved hand? And why would he accidently “drop” the other glove behind his house right where it could easily be found? Why would he “bang” on the wall outside of Kato’s room, drawing attention to himself? If he had cut himself at the scene of the murder, why was there little or none of his blood in the Broncho, not to mention a cut that bad should have left a big trail into his house? A few drops was all that there was. A picture of the back gate at the crime scene, at first, showed no blood. A later picture had blood stains on the gate. Why? And about the Broncho, if he had just murdered two people and feld the scene, why was there only one or two tiny specs of blood on the outside of the door? Seems to me that the door would have been red, not white. Why did they find no witnesses to the cut on his finger on the trip TO Chicage, but on the flight back to L.A. there were witnesses to a cut, after he stated he cut it on a glass in his hotel room? Where did the missing blood from his blood sample vial go? Why did the crime photographs of O.J.'s house first show no socks on the floor at the end of his bed, then later they were there? And why was the nurse allowed to change his testimony? Why was there no blood residue in the shower after O.J. “cleaned up”? With the testing procedures that are available today, I’m sure they could have found evidence if it had been there. And of course, where are the clothes that he wore to commit the crimes?

These are but a few of the questions that I have about the case. He may have done it, but the jury came to the verdict that they did because the defense did their job better that the prosecution did theirs, IMO.

31

Pundit & shodan: good posts, could not have said it better.

Sure, OJ was “innocent”, but he also killed them. The evidence was not enuf to convince the jury, thus, OJ is officially innocent. However, his loss in the wrongful death case shows that he killed them. Confusing, I know, but that is what you get with an bumbling DA.

32

Well, to answer just a few of the question: Where exactly would OJ have left fingerprints while committing the murders? I’m sure his knife had them, but we didn’t recover that. Fingerprints don’t show up on bodies.

As far as him being covered in blood…the stab wounds would not have resulted in him being sprayed with blood. The bloodiest wound was the near-decapitation of Nicole. For that one, OJ most likely stood over her when she was lying face down, grabbed her hair, and cut her throat from above. The blood would have splattered down and away from him. His own finger cut was fairly minor, and would not have been gushing blood, and would have been easy for witnesses to overlook.

Pictures showing different things? This can be explained by different camera angles and lighting conditions. Who exactly planted the evidence, and why didn’t anyone see them in a secured crime scene? Oh, I guess they in the conspiracy too. Why not.

Didn’t OJ give Robert Kardasian a mysterious bag to dispose of? I don’t recall the details of that, but if this was true, it would explain what happened to the clothes and knife.

I don’t think he banged on Kato’s wall to draw attention to himself. Kato’s recreation of the noise makes it sound like OJ accidently fell into the wall.

Yeah, you can tell I think OJ did it. The jury didn’t acquit him based on the evidence. Post-trial interviews show that they were an extremely unintelligent crew who were totally unmoved by the forensic evidence (one actually said that the existence of DNA was just a theory) but who did buy into Cochran’s racial conspiracy. They were very impressed by meaningless theatrics like the glove demonstration and the Furman tapes, unable to understand that this was not an interview with Furman baring his soul but part of a film project where Furman was developing a bad cop charecter. The defense was able to subtly suggest that Nicole was just a club hopping,alimony living bimbo living off a rich black man, and probably deserved to be killed anyway. Of course, the prosecution did a really bad lousy job as well.
If the LAPD had deliberately tried to frame him, Operation Frame the Juice would have went into operation the moment the crimes were reported. Does it really make sense that such a complicated and coordinated conspiracy would have rapidly emerged out the air to frame OJ? I don’t think so. Forensic mistakes were committed. I think that in any trial, the defense can find minor mistakes in the forensic investigation if they had enough experts to go through all the evidence. Does that mean everyone is innocent?

What do the Pro-Ojers think about OJ’s comment that if he had killed her, it was because he loved her too much? Does that sound like a veiled confession?

And please, none of this stuff about how no-one cares how many people rich white people kill. Does anyone think that the public outrage would have been less if it had been Joe Montana killing his ex-wife and her friend? Of course, Joe would have been convicted without the racial conspiracy defense.

The theory proposed by the BBC at least sounds possible, if totally unsupported by the evidence. It is at least better than OJ’s theory that blames it on Faye Resnick. Of course, Columbian drug dealers commonly send psychopathic teams of hit men to execute the friends of coke heads by carving them up in public places. Sure, you bet.

And don’t believe that that documentary (which I haven’t seen) is credible just because it was shown on the BBC. Europeans have their own stereotypes about American society, most of which are at least partially based on fact. In any case, any theory that sufficiently slams America, especially regarding national security policies or racism, will get a wide hearing in the European media regardless of its crediblity. Wasn’t the theory that the TWA jet was shot down by the American military also presented as a credible viewpoint in the European media?

33

Phil Responds:

I should apologize for what? The use of “Otay” ? I think the use of that word conveyed the image of a bunch of dopes
(OJ Jury) sitting back and agreeing with the non-sense presented by the Defense.

Oooh, let me jump to some conclusions: You consider that racially offensive? :confused:

Stick this in your back pocket: Although popularized by a black comedian in the early 80’s as a way to convey Buck Wheat’s semi-literate existence, “Otay” was never uttered by Buck Wheat in the Little Rascal Series. It was used by one of the other white cast members (Porky?) as a way of making him look stupid.

Your point is what? :confused:

“Otay” 101, Lessons to be learned (quite ironic in that they parallel the trial)…

Lessons from the “Otay” issue:

>KNOW THE FACTS BEFORE PASSING JUDGEMENT.
>LEAVE RACE OUT OF IT.
:slight_smile: Come to the table with all the facts, and don’t be so goddamed thin-skinned that everything has racial overtones.

Were you a jury member?

34

I assumed that “Otay” was a weird typo for “Okay”. Without wishing to fuel the debate, can anybody tell me what it is?

35

EVE said"Mistakes were certaibnly made, but one thing I’ve never understood is this: WHY would the L.A. police suddenly decide to frame a (semi) famous person for a high-profile murder, when they’d been letting him get away with wife-beating for, like, ten years? "

Unfortunately, the LAPD is all too used to framing people. I have mentioned the ‘Rampart’ scandal many times here. ‘Rampart’ is the name of a police station. A member of the imfamous CRASH anti-gang unit (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) was arrested for stealing a large amount of cocaine from an evidence locker.
To cut his sentence (a measly 5 years), he dropped dime on his fellow police officers. It seems they had framed a lot of people, along with stealing from them, beating them, and from time to time, shooting unarmed men and planting weapons on them. The D.A.'s office has vacated over 60 convictions because they were obtained with perjured testimony and planted evidence.
This was all reported in the LA Times and The LA Daily News.
Why would cops frame people? Who can be sure? But it happens.

36

Just a minor correction, fingerprints can show up on bodies. A man was convicted of killing his ex-wife based on his palm print found on her body. However, the technique that reveals fingerprints on skin was not used by the LAPD, probably because the amount of blood on the bodies would have made it useless.

37

There is a imprint on Goldmans shirt in blood which is where the killer grabbed the shirt and twisted it. Although the imprint is very distorted a expert on the show said that modern tech. could probably get a print out of it. He has used this technique himself. The LAPD are not interested in this or any other developments.

Also a picture of Nicoles back was shown and there was lots of small drops of blood on her back. These could have easily dropped from the killer but what did the forensic people do? They took a pic. and then turned her on her back and destroyed the evidence.

As to the big conspiracy theory. It doesn’t have to be like that. As was said before the PD had a suspect who they believed did it. They just sweetened it up a bit. Other evidence was just cross contamination or OJ might have been at the scene but after the killing.

I do not believe I have spent time on the pro. OJ side of things but I too was a OJ trial junky and came to look forward to my daily soap opera with the likes of Jerry Spence as co-hosts. If any evidence was planted that for me creates a reasonable doubt and I feel now that at least some of it was.

Can somebody tell me why when Furman(sp?) was asked did he plant any evidence he took the 5[sup]th[/sup]. Is there another reason other than not wanting to incriminate yourself for taking it.

38

of that trial. Day in, Day out, and I recorded the rare hours when I couldn’t watch in person.

The prosecution sucked intensely, starting with the insanely stupid decision to move the trial and right up through asking OJ to try on the glove (good lord!) AND EVEN SO…the jurors were idiots. Let us not forget the juror who dismissed DNA…

It was pathetic. Bugliosi said that the evidence in this trial was completley overwhelming. they had more compelling, irrefutable evidence in this trial than he has practically ever seen in any murder trial anywhere. And they still couldn’t get a conviction? Idiot jurors, period.

my .02

(Having been so obsessed with the thing, I was devastated when he got off. I was so excited when they came back so quickly, it was unimaginable to me that they would have let him off. I still get furious when I think about it.)

39

London Calling - (sorry this took so long…there were a bunch of other threads) Yes, I’m an American; Hawaii, to be exact. I didn’t see the all the televised coverage, of course…I did have obligations during that time…but I did follow the trial to the end. All I can say for sure is that if the case was really a lock, all the prosecution had to do was play it straight and fair and it would’ve been an easy victory (assuming OJ Simspon was guilty, which he probably was). Instead, they got complacent and tampered with evidence, mishandled evidence, and let someone incredibly damaging to their cause…Mark Furman, remember?..on the team. There are places where you can get away with inconsistencies and minor violations, but a court of law is not one of them.

Another important aspect of our law is the double jeopardy clause, which prevents anyone from being tried more than once for the same crime (there are exceptions, such as appellate cases). You get one shot, and if you screw up, too bad. Which, of course, only makes the prosectuion’s blunders even more glaring.

40

DKW, you may want to take off those rose colored glasses before posting next time…

Now, had you said, “…but a court of law WITH A WEALTHY CLIENT AS THE DEFENDANT is not one of them.” I would have bought it.